Arming the Sunni

Sometimes I just don’t get it. Either I’m an idiot or…

I’ve been reading about the U.S. arming Sunnis for quite a while now, and I’ve remained on the sidelines because I just don’t have enough facts to form an opinion. I’ve leaned toward thinking that it was probably not a good idea, but the people doing it are a lot better educated in these matters than I, and they are in the thick of it while I’m sitting safely here at my keyboard in calm and sunny San Diego.

Then there’s this article in McClatchy News today. In part,

“More than 60,000 have had fingerprints and DNA taken and had retinal scans, American officials said, steps that will allow them to be identified later, should they turn against the government.”

Now I’m getting into the “what are they thinking?” territory.

If someone is blasting away at me with an AK-47 how, exactly, is me having his fingerprints, DNA and retinal scan going to help my cause in any way, shape or form? What, I’m going to hold his DNA up in front of myself and he’s going to hold fire because he’s unwilling to shoot himself?

“Hey, guy, this is you. Hold your fire. You’re shooting yourself in the spit.”

He might not want to shoot his fingerprints either. Hold those up too. Somehow I think diving into a foxhole or shooting back at him might be just a bit more effective.

Or maybe not arming the guy in the first place.

But we’re cool because they’re going to stop handing out weapons and uniforms when they have armed a mere 100,000 Sunni. And we are leaving, what, about 30,000 to 50,000 troops there. Oh good, we’re only outnumbering ourselves by 3:1 or maybe only 2:1. I’m so relieved.

The Iraqis claim that some of the “security forces” we’ve armed are already engaged in the final mopping up of ethnic cleansing, but our military denies that. Well, duh. Of course our military denies that. Hell, under those circumstances I would deny that, and I usually tell the truth. Our military obfuscates based on wishful thinking, so of course it denies that it gave weapons to people who then used them to intimidate and even kill innocents. The military doesn’t even need to know that facts of the issue, it can merely deny that it happened. Business as usual, case closed.

There is a saying, I believe it’s an Arab one, to the effect that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

We complicate that a little. (Well, we complicate everything, usually more than a little.) In our case, if you fight us we will either kill you or we will throw you in a prison and leave you there forever. Unless you come up to us and say that you want to fight our enemy. (Please note that this is not the same as surrendering. If you surrender we will throw you in a prison and leave you there forever.)

If you walk up to us and say that you want to fight the same guys that we are fighting we will take your fingerprints and DNA, scan your retinas (“Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes, men.”) and will hand you some weapons and a uniform, pat you on the head and give you some kind of blessing.

And then we will, if we have any sense, run like hell. Or not.